INTERVIEW: Lurcher

Lurcher’s debut single, Stone Island, sets the scene perfectly: with crunching guitars and pounding drums, this sonic middle finger hits the ground running as it lambasts any and everyone who would listen. “I guess outside of creatives or people following their passion, it’s just a fuck you to everything powerful and everyone shit,” quips the band. With the opening lyric “Can you feel my hatred for these c*nts” you instantly know where you stand and what is coming.

Lurcher is made up of drummer Jonathan Mudd, bassist Christoph Crinson, guitarist Alex Featherstone and vocalist Spen White, who met through working the kitchens together in Teesside. To occupy shifts they would swap varied music recommendations, inadvertently layingthe foundations for what was going to become the band. “It got almost competitive,” Spen chuckles, “we were constantly trying to hunt for something the other lads wouldn’t haveheard of, something that would blow them away. I remember my first shift, I walked in and they had Brian Jonestown Massacre playing, and it snowballed from there.”

The interview plays out exactly how the music feels, as the members constantly swap anecdotes and goad each other into increasingly silly stories. There’s a palpable sense of community between them, as the friends chuckle away throughout the conversation. Lyrically, Stone Island fires acerbic one liners at you throughout the track, angry punchline after angry punchline. It’s striking and aggressive, walking the fine line of delivering a point of social discontent while keeping a tongue firmly planted in the cheek. “It’s all those little grumbles you have, those little phrases you say when someone fucks you off. As soon as we penned the line “fire up the tw*t-mobile” we knew the direction we wanted to take it.”As the band’s debut single, you are let into their world perfectly, and it’s one we all know; full of anger and frustration, but also hope. “It wasn’t the first song we wrote, but it was definitely the song where the penny dropped and we fully understood the sound we wanted, we locked in as a band here.”

Pulling influence from The Fall and Television, the symbiotic balance of rage and humour make for a sound that feels genuine, humane and relatable. The songs are infectious and dynamic, full of charm and full of swagger.Lurcher are pulling from an array of influences to create something distinctly British, as evidenced on another track, Mecca (Bingo), which pays homage to League of Gentlemen. “We’re all big film and TV fans, and it’s definitely drawn into the band. We were discussing the other day, why do films get less funny when they’re shot in high vis? There’s something innately more charming about the rough around the edges approach.”

This ethos forms the foundation of their upcoming EP, With Love, which is lo-fi, rough and raw. “This EP is us telling the people around us what they need to hear, the secondEP will be more abstract, looking toward new pastures, knowing that life can get better.”They show me their band notebook, talking me through their goals and ambitions and how they intend to evolve their sound and grow across EPs, quickly skipping past all the doodles of fighting dogs and aliens.

Lurcher’s sound is as authentic as it can get; it’s friends making a noise and creating a scene. It’s utterly Northern in its boisterous nature; self-effacing and honest, exciting, fresh and exactly what music should be.

Lurcher release With Love on 30th May.